The Closet
by Supersinger9000
Summary: Gumball finally decides to come out as transgender, but people's reactions aren't quite what she was expecting...


Authors Note: I wrote this one a while back, before finishing The Goldfish. I wasn't sure if I should publish it due to the possibility of getting transphobic comments, or even worse, failing to represent trans people correctly. I decided to go ahead with this after reading "I Am Gumball" by fanfic user Gemini126 and seeing the comments they got, nothing malicious or transphobic. So please be nice as I'm pretty sensitive about this story.

Ok, this was it, after all this time he was finally gonna do it. He was gonna tell Darwin his secret. It made sense, he hadn't kept a secret like this from him for so long before. Sure he had little secrets, but nothing of this magnitude, this would change everything. But he had to start somewhere, and Darwin was the least likely to freak out.

"Hey Darwin" he said "Can we go upstairs so I can talk to you, _alone."_

"Sure" Darwin replied, he was so agreeable with everything, Gumball wondered if he would regret saying yes once he told Darwin his secret.

"What do you want to talk about?" Darwin asked once they got up to their room.

"Well, this is kinda hard to say" Darwin smiled and nodded encouragingly, willing Gumball to go on. "but I think I might be transgender."

"What's transgender?" Darwin asked

"Well, it's when someone's gender doesn't match up to the gender they were assigned, take me, for example, I was born a boy but I think I'm actually a…." he hesitated a bit before saying the next part "...a girl." Gumball braced herself for Darwin's reaction, but to her surprise, Darwin started laughing.

"Oh, is that all? Dude, you had me worried for a minute there...Oops, do you not want me to call you "dude" anymore?"

"It's fine, I call everyone dude, it would be hypocritical of me to care about that now."

"Oh, ok" Darwin replied "Well, let's go tell Mrs. Mom and Mr. Dad."

"What! Why?" Gumball asked, getting freaked out, sure Darwin took it fine but how would the rest of the family react? Especially her mom, she was always pushing her to be a winner, she would be so disappointed to find out her son was actually her daughter.

"Don't you want them to stop calling you a boy?" Darwin asked, completely oblivious as to why Gumball would freak out about it.

"Well, yes, but…."

"Then come on." he said, dragging Gumball down the stairs. Maybe Darwin's right, she reasoned, They're gonna have to know at some point, and maybe it won't be so bad with Darwin backing her up. The family was all sitting in the living room when Darwin shouted

"Hey guys! Gumball has something to tell you." Everyone turned their eyes toward Gumball and Gumball became visibly nervous with everyone staring at her.

"Um...well...this is kind of hard to explain." Darwin was smiling and nodding again, encouraging her to keep going. "but I think I might be transgender."

"What's transgender?" Richard asked

"It's when someone's gender is different from the gender they were assigned at birth." Anais clarified. "Oh, sorry, did you want to explain it?" she asked Gumball, Gumball shook her head no.

"and what does that mean?" Richard asked, he didn't quite get the concept.

"It means that even though I was born a boy I think I might actually be a girl." Gumball explained.

"Oh, ok." Richard said. Gumball was flabbergasted, Darwin was one thing, but how could it be that no one in her entire family was having any reaction to this news. Maybe they just didn't get it yet.

"This means that I'll be wearing dresses, and makeup, sometimes even to school." Ha! that should get her mom worked up, she wouldn't even let her wear her Karate outfit to school that one time, there was no way she was gonna allow this.

"Alright sweetie, whatever makes you happy." It was at this point that her jaw dropped, to the floor. It's not like she wanted her family to freak out about it, but then again, maybe she did? Just a little? She had agonized for months about this, this was turning out to be way to easy. Maybe she _should_ wear a dress and makeup to school tomorrow, that should surprise people. She snuck in to her parents room and took one of her mom's old dresses, hopefully it didn't look to 80s, and borrowed her mom's makeup, luckily her mom would try out makeup on her before buying it, they look so similar that if it looked good on Gumball it looked good on Nicole, so she knew how to put on makeup. To her surprise her parents didn't say anything as she walked out the door, but that's ok, just wait until the whole school see's. As she walked into school with Darwin she braced herself for the students reactions, instead they looked at her with blank expressions.

"Hi, are you new here? I don't think we've met." Penny asked. Oh man, she forgot what happened the last time she wore a dress to school, everyone thought she was someone else entirely. Time to set the record straight.

"Penny, it's me, Gumball."

"Oh! well, why are you wearing a dress?"

"Well, I'm transgender, which means that I want to be seen as a girl now."

"Well, I'm glad you're being yourself Gumball."

"What? You aren't going to break up with me or anything?"

"I'll admit, I'm not usually into girls, but i'll make an exception for you." She gave Gumball a kiss on the cheek and Gumball completely lost it, she started screaming like an enraged banshee.

"Dude, chill out, what's the problem?" Darwin asked

"WHY DOES NOBODY CARE THAT I'M A GIRL NOW?!" Gumball screamed, "don't you think it's weird that one day you think I'm a boy and the next day I tell you that I'm a girl?"

"Dude, it's not that weird, this is Elmore, weirder things happen every day. Take me, for example, one day I'm a pet goldfish and the next day I've somehow grown legs and am adopted into the family, that's weird, and nobody cares about that either." Darwin said

"Yeah" Penny chimed in "and one day I'm a peanut with antlers and the next time I come to school I'm a shapeshifter, and no one thought that was weird. A change in gender is nothing." Gumball took those words in and smiled, then she started to giggle, which soon turned into full blown laughter "ha ha ha,you're right! Man I feel stupid now, all that worrying over how people would react was for nothing. I wish I'd thought of that, I would've saved myself months of agony."

"Wait, months?" Darwin exclaimed "you've felt like this for months and you never told me?"

"Well, yeah, I was worried that you would freak out or treat me differently once you found out that your brother is now your sister. Just because I'm a girl doesn't mean I don't want to do gross or dumb things with you. I'm still the same Gumball, just with different pronouns."

"I can't believe you thought I would do that. I'm your brother, your best friend. Don't you remember the day I grew legs?"

"I was just a little kid back then." Gumball protested

"It still meant a lot to me, you took charge and made sure I was ok."

"To be fair, I did scream."

"I screamed a lot more than you did."

"Yeah but you were the one it was happening to, it makes sense that you would scream more."

"Look, my point is, it meant a lot to me that you didn't freak out or anything, and you just went with it. I'm sorry that I made you feel like I wouldn't do that for you."

"Yeah, and you were the one who convinced me to come out of my shell." Penny interjected. "You even went into the forest to look for me, of course I would do the same for you." Gumball felt a strong swell of emotion, how could she not have trusted these people? She swept Penny and Darwin into a bear hug and said

"I love you guys."

"You too." Penny and Darwin squeaked as Gumball was currently choking them. Gumball noticed this and quickly released them. "Oh, sorry" she said. It was at that moment the school bell rang, surprising all three of them. "Oh, man, I completely forgot about class." She said, giggling.

"Me too" Darwin and Penny said, and soon all three of them were laughing, just the idea that something as mundane as school would still be going on after all that drama was enough to send them into hysterics. At last Gumball said "Well, I'd better go set the record straight with Miss Simian, or else all my grades will go to Gumballoopseggwobbleunderpant." This got the three laughing again as they headed to Miss Simian's class.

"You're late!" Miss Simian snapped as they walked through the door, "and why are you all so happy?" The three all shared a smile.

"Don't worry." Gumball said "It's nothing."


End file.
